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Jamaicans brace for close general elections

Jamaicans are gearing up to vote tomorrow in what is expected to be one of the closest general elections on the Caribbean state since independence in 1962.

Political tensions have been rising since the vote was postponed when Hurricane Dean ravaged the island earlier this month and there have been reports of politically motivated shootings and fights.

The ruling People's National Party (PNP) led for the first time by a woman, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, is running neck-and-neck in the polls with the opposition Jamaica Labor Party (JLP), led by Bruce Golding.

Labor has been rallying support with its focus on boosting the island's economy, tackling its national debt and fighting crime and corruption.

But Simpson Miller has urged Jamaicans to return her party, which has ruled the island for 18 years, so it can complete its goal of turning Jamaica into a developed country by 2030.

A total of 60 parliamentary seats are up for grabs in the new five-year assembly, in a first past-the-post system with the party which wins more than 31 seats being declared the winner.

The PNP won 34 seats in the last polls in 2002, after a landslide victory in the 1997 elections, when it seized 50 seats.

Simpson Miller, who postponed the vote originally scheduled to take place last Monday by a week, had argued against holding any elections in order to concentrate on recovery efforts after the hurricane.

But the Electoral Office of Jamaica ruled the elections should go ahead, and the vote threatens to be close.

The Gleaner, the country's oldest newspaper, showed Labor with a 4 percent lead in its latest polls, running at 42 percent to 38 percent, while a poll for the Jamaica Observer put the PNP ahead by a scant 41.3 percent to 40.3 percent.

Political Ombudsman Bishop Herro Blair has ordered that all political advertising stop by midnight.
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